Fun Machine: The Sequel Lake Street Dive

• 1Automatic03:58
• 2Anyone Who Had A Heart03:03
• 3You're Still The One04:23
• 4So Far Away03:36
• 5Nick Of Time04:10
• 6Linger04:11
• Total Runtime23:21

Info for Fun Machine: The Sequel

For Lake Street Dive, the prospect of covering some of their favorite songs in the studio isn’t merely an exercise in breathless adoration. It’s an opportunity for artful re-invention, a way to acknowledge their inspirations while also advancing their own musical foundation¾all in hopes of inspiring a new generation of fans along the way. On Fun Machine: The Sequel, they do just that – spinning these carefully chosen and beloved songs to new places in their own, entirely original way.

“Imagine you walk into your favorite local dive bar and Lake Street Dive is on stage, doing our regular weekly gig for $5 a head. These are the songs we’d be covering there and how we’d be playing them. Some deep cuts, some sentimental favorites and some (hopefully) epic crowd pleasers.”

Produced by Robin MacMillan and recorded at Figure 8 Recording in Brooklyn and Lucy’s Meat Market in Los Angeles (with contributions from touring guitarist/background vocalist, James Cornelison), Fun Machine: The Sequel is the band’s second set of distinctive cover songs. While 2012’s Fun Machine paid homage to their classic R&B, neo-soul, and jazz roots, Fun Machine: The Sequel expands the aperture a little wider, featuring selections ranging from R&B and pop favorites like Dionne Warwick’s (Burt Bacharach/Hal David penned) classic “Anyone Who Had A Heart,” and The Pointer Sisters’ funky “Automatic,” to works by introspective singer-songwriters such as The Cranberries’ gorgeous “Linger,” Carole King’s classic “So Far Away,” Bonnie Raitt’s era-defining “Nick Of Time,” and even Shania Twain’s suddenly resurgent pop-country anthem, “You’re Still The One.”

Ten years ago, a deliciously syncopated cover of The Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back” performed on a street corner in Boston, Massachusetts, helped propel Lake Street Dive’s remarkable journey. With tens of millions of streams, an acclaimed discography including seven celebrated studio LPs, two EP’s, a slew of much-loved singles and an enduring worldwide fanbase to their credit, the genre-busting group has become a dynamic and exhilarating force in popular music. And on Fun Machine: The Sequel, it’s Lake Street Dive’s signature combination of immaculate musicianship, exceptional, inventive chops, and free-wheeling sense of fun that leads the way.

Rachael Price, lead vocals, ukulele, guitar
Bridget Kearney, acoustic bass, electric bass, piano, vocals
Mike Calabrese, drums, organ, vocals
Akie Bermiss, keyboards, organ, vocals
James Cornelison, guitar, backing vocals

Lake Street Dive
How is it that something so unlikely can also be so infectious, so naturally exhilarating? Pulling in familiar elements and irreverently scrambling and recombining them, Lake Street Dive are at once jazz-schooled, DIY-motivated, and classically pop obsessed. Beginning with catchy songs that are by turns openhearted and wryly inquisitive, this northeastern quartet proceeds to inject them with an irresistible blend of abandon and precision. Composed of drummer Mike Calabrese, bassist Bridget Kearney, vocalist Rachael Price, and trumpet-wielding guitarist Mike "McDuck" Olson, Lake Street Dive encompasses a myriad of possibilities within its members’ collective experiences, and the resultant music is a vivid, largely acoustic, groove-driven strain of indie-pop. “It seems the only limitation we have,” Kearney explains, "is that we try to make music that we would like listening to."

Hailing from such disparate locales as Tennessee (Price), Iowa (Kearney), Minneapolis (Olson), and Philadelphia (Calabrese), Lake Street Dive first gathered in a room together when they were students at Boston’s New England Conservatory. "Mr. McDuck assembled the four of us, said we were now Lake Street Dive, and we were a 'free country' band," Bridget Kearney remembers. "He wrote this on a chalkboard in the ensemble room that we had our first rehearsal in. We intended to play country music in an improvised, avant-garde style – like Loretta Lynn meets Ornette Coleman. It sounded terrible! But the combination of people and personalities actually made a lot of sense and we had a great time being around each other and making music together."

Lake Street Dive makes the most of pop music virtues: solid, evocative song craft; propulsive grooves; and Price’s disarming, forthright vocals. However, it’s a personal strain of pop that is refracted through the band members' rich backgrounds: a sinewy Motown bass line is reborn with woody heft on Kearney’s upright, Calabrese’s drumming mixes timekeeping with more adventurous jazz-inflected outbursts, McDuck’s nimble trumpet is an unexpectedly warm counterpoint to Price’s singing. It all makes for a sound with familiar roots, but with a slant that is entirely their own. Lake Street Dive's eventual artistic breakthrough came not without struggle, and still surprises original instigator Mike “McDuck” Olson. "Now we’re a pop band, leaning very heavily on soul and rock, with hook-y writing, which I never expected," he concludes. "If I could travel through time, I'd go back six years and play the new record for my younger self, just to assure him that the awkward, new-band phase doesn’t last forever."

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